


That damn android

by natigail



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Androids, Anxiety, Autistic Connor (Detroit: Become Human), Connor doesn't know what do to with himself after the mission is over, Drinking to Cope, Fluff, Gen, Hopeful Ending, M/M, Suicidal Thoughts, Told from Hank's point of view
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-27
Updated: 2018-08-27
Packaged: 2019-07-03 10:40:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,420
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15817233
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/natigail/pseuds/natigail
Summary: Lieutenant Hank Anderson was happy that he didn't have a partner, so he was less than thrilled to be stuck with an android detective. However, during one of the most crazy weeks of his life, which ended with an android revolution, Hank had begun to get a much better understanding of androids, deviants and Connor in particular.After everything was over, he just wanted to give his partner a hug.





	That damn android

**Author's Note:**

> It's my first time writing in this fandom. I hope you like it.

 

Lieutenant Hank Anderson did not want a partner. He was quite happy on his own. He saw no reason to let someone near his wrecked life.

He was killing himself slowly every day with each swig of alcohol. It burned his throat and muddling the thoughts. When the alcohol burned in his veins, he couldn’t feel the loss of Cole quite as brutally. One day he might also win Russian roulette, or lose it, if you were inclined to view it that way.

When Captain Fowler told him that he would be getting none other than an android partner, Hank naturally threw a fit and stormed out. He went drinking, like he always did.

A detective android.

They really were talking all human jobs now.

Hank almost didn’t care. He didn’t care for himself at all but he cared for his fellow officers. To be replaced by machines. Would they be able to calculate and put together clues? Talk to witnesses? Follow a lead? Talk to suspects? Get confessions?

Hank didn’t have the most hope. Android surgeons had certainly not been perfect.

The drink served to grant him some numbness. It wasn’t enough.

And then that damn android showed up in Jimmy’s Bar.

It sounded smug. Determined. Mechanical.

When it bought him a drink, Hank felt himself become a little more forgiving or maybe it had just been the alcohol. It was probably the alcohol.

He hadn’t wanted to go to that crime scene. He hadn’t wanted to work to find deviant androids. He didn’t understand the technology. He wasn’t fucking qualified for this shit.

And the detective android?

Connor, it was called.

 _He_ was called.

He looked scarily human, even with the goofy and trusting face.

Hank didn’t know what to make of him. Hank watched Connor put together the clues - and except for the disgusting habit of licking blood - the android did good work. He knew how to push and when to ease up in the following interrogation.

Gavin didn’t like Connor.

It made Hank like Connor a little more. Gavin was an entitled asshole.

Connor claimed that he would do anything to accomplish his mission of catching deviants but Hank quickly started to see deviations from that goal.

Connor stopped chasing after a deviant to pull Hank up from a ledge. Connor chose not to shoot the deviating Traci who said that they were in love. Connor lowered the gun at Kamski’s ultimatum, even if shooting would have given him the answers he had been searching for.

Hank was fairly certain that he picked up on Connor’s seeds of deviancy before Connor noticed it himself, despite the claims of self-testing.

Then there was the worrying about Hank’s wellbeing: warning him not to eat bad food, telling him that he should stop drinking and keeping him focused on the work. It was a long time since anyone had worried about Hank like that and it couldn’t all be from Connor’s programming.

Connor also tried to hard to learn information about Hank and the android might have told himself that it was for the good of their mission and their partnership but Hank spotted what looked like genuine curiosity in his expressive face.

It was looking more and more like androids were becoming sentient and beings of free will when they became deviant.

Kamski’s words had stayed in Hank’s head ever since the man had stated them in disbelief: _CyberLife’s last chance to save humanity… is itself a deviant…_

Connor had sounded so lost and confused as he claimed that he wasn’t deviant.

From that moment, Hank knew with certainty that Connor was so much more than a machine. Not only because he showed empathy towards the Chloe android but because he was also experiencing self-doubt.

It was another very human emotion.

It wouldn’t possibly have been built into his system because it would never be able to serve him well. He was supposed to trust in his programming. He was supposed to focus on accomplishing his mission, like he so often told Hank.

He sounded wrecked as he was starting to see that maybe he was turning into the very thing he was programmed to hunt. Hank wanted to help him. It was very long since he had felt that type of determinacy to do anything.

Life had just been slipping through his fingers for years and one day he knew all his lifestyle choices would kill him.

Before he had only been sad to leave Sumo behind. It was the reason Hank could never put a fully loaded gun to his temple in the first place.

But now…

He hadn’t wanted Connor in his life. He had detested him as he strolled in, like he was a new expensive and confusing piece of technology that Hank had to use for his job. But he had a face that perfectly mimicked human expressions and it had quickly started to confuse Hank’s brain.

Connor had looked and sounded very real but Hank had tried to focus on the way he spoke, ever so slightly off-beat from how real humans sounded or how his walk was always that tiny bit more stiff and tilted. It was difficult to spot but Hank had focused on it when their partnership had first begun.

But Connor had started to change before Hank’s eyes. He was different now. He was becoming more and more human. It didn’t take much consideration for Hank to hand over his ID card so that Connor could be able to find Jericho.

Getting to punch that smug look off Perkins’ face was an added bonus.

He was sure that he knew Connor’s true intentions, even under his programming logic and Connor would make the right choice.

Later when he tried to help, he had not counted on being faced with two Connor’s, who appeared completely identical. It was making Hank’s head hurt as he moved his gun between the two of them while standing in the middle of the android warehouse. He was looking for the mannerisms that he had thought had been so distinctly Connor, how he thought that his partner had softened and become softer and more human.

But he couldn’t tell.

He felt like he was failing Connor, who had rushed forward to save him from his clone. He couldn’t tell who was his Connor because they moved and talked identically. He wasn’t even sure if they would be sharing the same memories and then there was truly no way to tell them apart.

Still, he had to find a way to recognize his Connor.

Requesting his son’s name broke Hank’s heart a little but he still did it. The Connor who answered didn’t just reply correctly. He made sure to let Hank know that the accident wasn’t his fault.

He showed compassion. Another human emotion.

Hank hadn’t told anyone about Cole in years but he finally revealed the truth to Connor. He wasn’t angry at the android that had been unable to save his son, he was angry at the human who had been too drugged up to perform his job. The android had been a back-up solution and it had failed but at least Hank knew that the android had tried its very best to save Cole.

Androids could get very single-minded with their goals and Hank now knew that they didn’t deal well with being unable to accomplish them.

Connor hid it well behind his stern expression but Hank was sure that he felt guilt whenever he was unable to accomplish his mission. It was yet another human emotion that had crawled into his wiry heart pump.

Hank shot the fake after Connor’s compassionate reply and his Connor awoke the androids. Hank watched in awe of his partner as the deviancy spread through all the androids that had remained stationary during the whole fight because it was what they had been told to do.

On television, Hank watched and listened to the deviant leader Markus give a speech with Connor standing in the background. Hank knew that Connor would come looking for him afterwards, so he went to the only place he could think of that wasn’t his home, which was too far away, or the police station itself, which was filled with officers who might not take too kindly to Connor’s appearance so soon.

Hank knew that Connor would be able to find him almost anywhere. The android had had a knack from it from the very beginning. Hank had hated it at first, epically when Connor interrupted the game Hank was watching at the bar or broke in through his kitchen window, but he had come to appreciate that it was just something Connor did.

Connor picked up on things. He remembered minute details. He kept going until he accomplished his mission.

Hank was happy that Connor had flipped his mission on its head but he had still been steadfast in accomplishing it. Hank suspected that it gave Connor a sense of purpose, even in his deviancy as he didn’t need to follow his programming anymore.

Connor had certainly given Hank a new sense of purpose.

The Chicken Feed was closed. Connor would probably appreciate that Hank wouldn’t be able to indulge in the unhealthy food while he waited.

The crunch of snow behind him made him turn around and there he was.

He was in the same damn uniform he always wore and with the blue circle still present on his temple. Both things that clearly distinguished him as an android and it made him appear like the android that had walked into Hank’s life merely a week ago.

It might as well have been a lifetime.

When Connor returned the smile, with just a slight tilt up of one corner of his lips, Hank closed the distance between them and pulled Connor into an embrace.

He had never held Connor like this before. He almost expected him to be hard to the touch and stiff in his posture but it was the opposite. Connor somehow felt soft and warm and he melted into the hug as he carefully brought his hands up to hug Hank back and he allowed himself to lean against Hank’s chest.

“What now?” Connor asked, still held in Hank’s embrace.

He sounded like a scared child.

He had helped to free the androids. The revolution had happened, even if there were still so much to be done for android rights.

For the first time in Connor’s admittedly very short life, he didn’t have a mission to accomplish.

“I don’t know what to do now, Hank,” Connor confessed and Hank could feel that Connor’s hands were shaking and then clenching the fabric of Hank’s jacket.

“You can do whatever you want, Connor. Wasn’t that the whole idea?” Hank asked a little carefully.

Connor pulled back from the hug but his hands kept holding on to the sides of the lieutenant’s jacket.

“Yes, that was the mission. The new mission,” Connor confirmed but he looked shaken and his voice came out a little weird. “Freedom for androids.”

“Connor?”

“Yes, lieutenant?”

“It’s okay to be scared,” Hank said and settled his hands on Connor’s shoulders.

“I… I realize that. I’m a deviant. I have emotions,” Connor said out loud and Hank had a feeling it was more for his own benefit rather than Hank’s. “I became deviant. I became the thing I was programmed to catch.”

Connor looked like he was panicking and Hank was never good with any of this stuff. He had no clue how to deal with human emotions most of the time and let alone in an android who had only recently required them.

“Connor, look at me,” Hank requested and Connor’s eyes, which had been moving back and forth while his LED had been flashing red, looked up and stared straight at Hank. “You did well. You might have chased the deviants but you never hurt any of them. Every step of the way, you tried to protect them or every time you chose not to shot. You started deviating from your original mission days ago, Connor. It’s okay. Take a breath.”

Hank wasn’t actually sure if taking a breath served to calm down androids like it did humans but it was worth a try. Connor dutifully followed Hank’s order.

“I don’t know what to do with myself now that I don’t have a mission. If I might be free to do anything but… that leaves so much choice. How can I possibly pick? So much needs to be done. I do not know where to start.”

“Well, how about we start with what you enjoy?”

“Working with you,” Connor stated bluntly without any hesitance.

He said it like that was the easiest question to answer. Hank’s heart might have been iced over since Cole’s death but Connor had slowly been chipping away at the ice for the past week.

With that honest admission, the last remaining layer completely shattered and Hank didn’t know what to say. He felt a little choked up.

“Lieutenant, are you okay? I detect an instability in your emotional state.”

“Instability, my ass. Come here,” Hank said and pulled Connor back into a hug. Connor didn’t object this time and he hugged him back immediately without the careful movements.

“If we’re going to keep being partners, you’ll have to learn to call me Hank, Connor.”

Hank pulled back from the hug and now it was Connor who looked touched.

“I could keep working with you? Is that one of my options?” Connor asked and he sounded so young and hopeful.

Hank’s heart did not feel icy anymore. It felt very warm.

“I bet this city could use a pair like us. Your fellow androids will need all the help they can get from the police department. I know I never said it, not even when you told me, but I’ve enjoyed working with you too, Connor, and I would like to continue to do so.”

“It would be an honor to stay your partner, Hank,” Connor said and then he did that little smirk of his, the one Hank wasn’t sure he would have been able to pull off if there wasn’t something human-like in him.

Lieutenant Hank Anderson had not wanted a partner, least of all an android one. He had been content to be lonely and miserable. However, Connor had waltzed right into his life and now Hank couldn’t imagine a life without his android partner.

 

**Author's Note:**

> [Reblog on tumblr](http://secretlywritingstories.tumblr.com/post/177456842160/that-damn-android-dbh-one-shot)
> 
>  
> 
> I've never played the game but I watched Jacksepticeye and later Bryan Dechart play this game and like many others, I immediately took a liking to Connor. His internal struggles were fascinating and you could really bring him in very different directions as a player but most of the time I just wanted to reach through the screen and give him a hug. I could imagine Hank felt very much the same way (if the two had a good relationship that is), hence why this was born. Since Hank seems to be very clever, despite his "personal problems" as Connor calls them, I had a feeling he would have picked up on Connor's deviant tendencies pretty early.
> 
> Their dialogue at the end was so fun to write and I just imagine them continuing to be great partners in the future after the game. Feedback is highly appreciated and I have been Posting Every Day In August so far, so if you like my writing style feel free to check my profile or my writing tumblr @secretlywritingstories


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